Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be
by Maribor
Summary: "People were either gray to her or in color. Regular people, ordinary people soon faded from her vision, they became gray, and sort of soft around the edges. There but not really there. When John Watson walked in he came in full color." An unapologetically pro-Mary piece examining her thoughts about herself, her John and his Sherlock.


_Let's cut to the meat of it right off. I am a diehard JohnLocker who is also unapologetically Pro-Mary. *And so I hear the sound of thousands of people clicking off this story*. So be it, I'm not bovvered. For those who have stayed, yes, Pro-Mary, always have been and always will be. I think she's complicated and brilliant and ruthless and capable of an amount of love that overwhelms even her at times. At least, that's how I see her and wrote her here. This isn't a surprise to anyone who has read my Sherlock stuff before but I figured it was fair to warn you all._

 _In a strictly in-universe sense, leaving Mofftiss out of it, the only thing stopping John and Sherlock from getting together are John and Sherlock._

* * *

 **Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be**

Slipping into a new life, a new personality was like dressing in all new clothes that you'd purchased without trying them on.

They were tight at first, constraining and for awhile you balk and flex and stretch. Initially, it's no use. You snap a thread here or there but the clothes seem determined, unwilling, inflexible.

Then a few more threads pop, there's more give, more room, you and the fabric are less stiff. But eventually, it becomes more about you wearing them as opposed to them wearing you. They start to conform to your mold. They become you and they are becoming. Finally, you fit and it's as if you've worn them all your life.

And so it was when she slipped into the clothes of the life that was to be Mary Morstan. Robbing the name from a life that never was.

Mary started off as a placeholder. Just a time to breathe. She was never meant to be permanent. In the meantime she fashioned AGRA into something else.

Agatha.

Grace.

Regina.

Allison.

Mary kept to herself. It seemed to her that anyone with a name like Mary Morstan would. Buttoned-down, tight-lipped, here to do her job and nothing more. After a personality, she had to pick a profession and nurse seemed as good as any. She falsified a few credentials, went on a few interviews and soon enough she was gainfully employed NP Mary Morstan. By the end of the month Mary Morstan has secured a flat far beyond what a nurse should be able to afford, she had ordered furniture and a bed, she'd done the weekly shop and correctly pointed out to the outgoing doctor a nodule on a patient's neck as possible thyroid cancer.

All in all it was a good few weeks for Mary Morstan who was quiet and sometimes abrupt, efficient but not very friendly. Mary who ate alone at luncheon. Mary who was always punctual. Mary who always declined going to the pub after hours.

The current doctor was only filling in, she was to learn as the steady doctor wasn't all that steady. He missed appointments, days, sometimes weeks. Currently he was gone due to a death in the family but he was expected back soon.

People were either gray to her or in color. She assessed people upon meeting them, who they were, what they liked and didn't like, what they were trying to hide and whether or not they were a threat. Regular people, ordinary people soon faded from her vision, they became gray, and sort of soft around the edges. There but not really there. Ghosts she supposed that she was occasionally forced to interact with. It worked well as a filtering tool.

When John Watson walked in he came in full color.

He wasn't ordinary. He wasn't boring. He had a great many secrets and he could very likely be a threat.

He cleared his throat a lot. He used it as a pause, a placeholder in-between thoughts, silences, things that made him uncomfortable, things he was bracing himself to say or hear.

There was a button on his shirt that caught her attention. The thread had snapped at some point and the thread used to repair it didn't match its mates. It was close though and sewn on with care. Mother? No. Not a girlfriend either. Someone close to him but older. Hand were a bit unsteady as she could see it had taken a few go rounds for the thread to make it's way through each and every hole.

He'd been out quite late the night before but he hadn't had a drink. It wasn't a pub crawl that had gotten in the way of his sleep. There was a slice on his finger and a rounded, deep scuff mark on the top of his shoe. Both looked to be the work of an unruly chain link fence he'd spent time scaling. There was dried mud on his boots as well but since it hadn't rained recently it must have meant he'd been down by the water's edge. The pattern was splashed along the edges of the sole indicated he hadn't been walking but running.

He was clearly...

She went on like that, assembling his dossier in her head as she waited patiently to be introduced. The more she observed the more vibrant he became.

The last thing she noted was the slight redness underneath his nose. He'd been rubbing it. He was just getting over a cold. Or perhaps he'd been crying.

"John Watson, nice to meet you, Nurse Morstan." He said with a sniffle.

"The pleasure is all mine, Dr. Watson."

* * *

Agatha, "Aggie" to her mates was looking for a change and decided to chase down an old boyfriend who she heard had moved to Brazil of all places. Her long and detailed blog entries told her story and how one day she was absolutely going to quit her job, pack up and go.

Grace Elspeth lived in New Zealand. She'd purchased a property and was paying someone to keep it warm until she sorted things out in her hometown of Denver, Colorado.

Regina was a writer who kept busy and unencumbered and that was the way she liked it. She submitted articles to travel magazines when the mood struck her . But she didn't like deadlines. She didn't even like having a phone. You didn't reach out to Regina, she reached out to you. She had a way of turning up in the damnedest of places.

Allison-Corrine was an agoraphobe who worked from home but was slowly getting better with the help of some rather expensive therapy. She was nearly ready to re-emerge into the world.

All of these women were like carefully tailored outfits in her closet. She had been arranging them, cultivating them, breathing life into them for years. They were her safety's her fallbacks. And yet when the time came, when she wanted to leave none of them would do. She needed someone completely new and that was where Mary came in.

Grace Elspeth, Allison-Corrine, Regina and Agatha were still out there. Alive, writing, working, traveling, pining, planning, running. She kept whatever presence she had established for them up and active. They were always there, ready and waiting and if there came a point where Mary had to die, well, she would just slide into another time, another identity, another place and start over, again.

* * *

She wasn't sure how post his post-traumatic stress was. She also wasn't sure just how traumatic or stressful it had been... _was,_ either. There were layers upon layers of pain inside this man. Damage and darkness and scar tissue. It felt...familiar. And as much as she didn't want to get close she found herself engaging in that mindless little chitchat she hated just to hover around him. Except it wasn't mindless and she didn't hate it.

It was only after meeting John that wearing the guise of Mary began to chafe a bit.

She'd killed a man that looked like him once. Not so much the features, but the eyes, sad eyes full of secrets.

A part of her knew thoughts like that, comparisons weren't normal but she wasn't very good at normal anymore.

Had she wanted to or needed to, killing John Watson would have been a challenge. He had seen war, on the battlefield and off, sanctioned and otherwise. Mary could tell by the way he held himself, by the way he walked, by the order he required which was so similar to what she needed as well.

She observed him at every moment.

He operated on a degree of awareness she hadn't expected to find in a dusty little clinic.

Once a comedy of errors had caused a patient to knock into a heavy metal filing cabinet. Already unsteady the jolt sent it crashing to the floor. Everyone in the office jumped, except the two of them.

He froze but not in fear, in that way you steady yourself before acting. That way you will yourself still as you take in every inch of the room, the people and what has just happened. He froze and she saw his fingers twitch prepared to go for a weapon she knew he wasn't carrying.

That was a stillness not simply acquired but cultivated.

She wondered how many people Dr. Watson had killed in his lifetime, within the theater of war and without.

It was, in a word, thrilling. It had been a long time since a man, since anything other than a kill had thrilled her.

This was all very disrupting and troubling and on more than one occasion after she parted from him, after he insisted on walking her to her car or waiting with her for a cab she found herself frowning. Frowning as she still sensed the feel of his hand on the small of her back.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Not by far.

He asked her out for coffee. Someone said yes and it turned out the someone was her. She hadn't planned on saying yes.

He was mourning someone. A brother? A lover? Those lines seemed blurred, even for him and she'd just have to do what she rarely did; wait to be told as opposed to figuring it out herself.

What was clear was that he loved him. Deeply. The frightening sort of deep where love is this endless pool. Delightful, sparkling when you're treading water with the person. Awful. Cavernous. Deadly when they're gone.

That's where John Watson was when she met him. Barely keeping his head above the water. Depression threatening to take him under every seventh wave.

She stayed away from love but especially that kind of love.

She stayed away from people caught in the midst of it because they were the most irrational and dangerous.

He finally told her the man's name on their fifth date...yes, she was dating him. Dating. Like a bloody schoolgirl.

Sherlock.

"Sherlock, like the bishop." She said as she smiled at him. She couldn't help but smile at him and he smiled freely in return.

"Pardon?"

"The Church of England bishop, Thomas Sherlock, served in the early to mid-1700's."

"Church scholar, is that another of your hidden talents?"

"No, I just have a lot of odd facts rolling about my head."

The next day at work he greeted her with a quote.

"Most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that was of no use; but puzzle their thoughts to be themselves is those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom."

She'd blinked and gone still, the words unnerving her.

He noticed and she saw the flush of embarrassment creep up his neck.

He cleared his throat.

"Sorry, it's um... I looked up the fellow you mentioned, the bishop. That's one of his more famous quotes."

Her heart finally resumed beating and she dredged up a smile.

"Oh, yes, of course! Yes, quite right. Well...I like that."

"I'm glad. I've always found it to be true."

"Have you?"

"Yes, it...seems like something Sherlock would have said...my Sherlock"

My Sherlock.

* * *

The first time they had sex she managed to get hold of the condom, fill the vials that came with the kit she'd purchased and freeze it.

Allowing sentiment to cloud judgment and a need to prepare put you on the fast track to being killed. This wasn't personal.

If she needed to have a baby, it was there. If she needed to get pregnant and then miscarry, it would work as well. If she needed to blackmail him or perhaps produce an unsavory accusation, it would do.

Knowing how to kill someone is not a measure of your affection for them or lack thereof. She knew precisely how she'd John Watson him should it come to that. A bullet was simple. But if there was combat involved, his leg was the place to start and finish it. He'd had a limp and it was almost imperceptible to the naked eye but there was still enough of a twinge there for her to target it. The shoulder had it's own weakness as well. Only by going over these thoughts, again and again was she able to feel comfortable with him. To relax.

The more she worked out an exit strategy with John Watson the more she was willing to allow him in.

He didn't have much family but he had enough. His pressure points, as someone she'd dearly like to forget, would have called them.

The woman, not a mother but a landlady as she would come to find out, the one who'd sewn on the button. The doctor at St. Barts, the mousy one. The sister he claimed to have washed his hands of. Not many, not much, but enough to hurt him if need be.

After their first date she'd put a trojan in his bank account capable of draining all his money. With a few lines of code she could erase his entire identity. She'd accessed his medical records to get a handle on any allergies, illnesses, diseases or weaknesses. She'd tapped into his therapists computer...but she'd stopped herself before reading anything. That was before their third date.

This was how her world worked. How it always had. Just as you set up escape hatches in your own life you needed to plant boobytraps in the lives of others. Just in case. This was all just in case. In case she was wrong. In case she was letting her heart cloud her head. And yes, by their eighth date her heart was very much involved. In case she was wrong about him.

Knowing how far you were willing to go to hurt someone was a good barometer in measuring how much you cared for them or how little.

It was odd to allow so much of herself to shine through with him and to be liked for it. She was smart, far smarter than she'd ever let him know, of course. But what she did show didn't frighten him. In fact it seemed to excite him. He liked her wit, her sharp tongue, her bold nature, her body. He didn't romanticise the story she told him about being an orphan or moving around a lot or not having many...any friends. He didn't feel the need to add on to her story with his own, to one up her. He didn't talk over her, he didn't think taking her out for dinner earned him a shag though he was never one to turn it down. He didn't balk proprietarily when she cut her hair...he liked her.

It was so overwhelming she took time off work, manufactured a crisis "back home" and didn't see or speak to him for a week. She needed to get her head sorted out. This was foolish. Terribly foolish. She was on the run and _he_ could find her. He could find her with a snap of his fingers and then what? Perhaps he'd already found her. Perhaps he was just toying about watching her like a god, clutching at the secrets that would bring everything crashing down.

She had always tried to matter-of-factly acknowledge that threat with the idea that if it happened she would just move on. Pull up stakes and try on somebody new.

But that was before John. John with his kind eyes and his nervous throat-clearing and that ridiculous moustache that she had no idea why she let him keep. John who calmed her. John whose touch she started to need and miss when absent. John who always wanted to help, to know, to fix. John who chased the old nightmares away.

But it hadn't been all one-sided. As much as he had helped her, she'd helped him, much to her own surprise. The persona he put on at work was equal parts real and false. He was steadier than he had been, capable, stronger, but the loss of this Sherlock had wrecked him.

Suicide, she'd discovered. Though after reading about it and researching it didn't sound like a suicide at all. Not that she told him that. Though he didn't seem to accept it as the real motive either. As it turned out they solved crimes together. If that wasn't just her luck. Well, at least he's dead, she thought. Sometimes John still went out. He had a contact in the Yard, a Lestrade who once in awhile reached out when he needed a fresh set of eyes. That was what John had been doing the night before they met. Chasing a slasher (She'd thought he'd said "flasher" at first but he clarified) by the riverbank, across a field, over a fence eventually tackling him facedown on cement.

The story, him, alone, working on a hunch, no weapon (he did own a gun, his service revolver but he'd left it at home) chasing down a man with a knife had turned her on more than she thought possible. She'd pushed him down on the bed and put him through his paces so much so that at one point she teased him saying she might just injure his other leg.

It wasn't until later, when he was sleeping the sleep of the righteous and the righteously shagged that she realized it hadn't been the danger that had turned her on. It had been the man. It had been John.

She was too close. Falling too hard and too fast. This was the time to bolt before things go out of hand.

This was her training and for the first time ever she bristled at the idea. It was practical, yes, but...not John. This wouldn't be necessary with John.

 _Famous last words, "Mary"._

She was drawing a line. A stupid line, she chided herself but a line nonetheless. Not this man. Not this day. Not this time.

When he said he loved her she said it back, nearly before he finished the sentence. And it was good and true and it terrified her.

Initially when he whispered to her at night, when he texted or called or took her hand and a stolen peck turned into a long and deep kiss where he hummed "Mary..." against her lips she _wished_ she'd given him her real name. She would have so liked to hear him say it.

But as time went on she began to love "Mary" because he loved it. She didn't take Mary as her own until John Watson breathed life into it and gave it meaning and a beating heart.

She destroyed all those failsafe's, the booby traps, the bank trojan and the sperm that night.

* * *

John's proposal didn't surprise her. She'd seen that coming. This, she did not chock up to being ex-CIA. This was just part and parcel of being a woman. No woman worth her salt was ever truly surprised by a proposal because no man was ever really able to keep a secret. When she put it all together, his nervousness, the extra throat clearing, and those furtive little school boy glances he gifted her in the week leading up she was happy. Terrified and happy.

She knew just when it was about to happen and she excused herself to the Ladies. There she stood before the mirror and stared. This was it. This was the moment. Uncharted territory of a brand new map. If she stepped out of this room and turned left, she could wind her way to the kitchen, exit the building through the back, hail a cab, return to her flat, pack her things and be on a flight in hours. She could vanish from John Watson's life and he would never, ever find her. He was a good man, perhaps the best she'd ever known. What had he done to deserve her?

Or, she could leave this room and turn right. Glide back down those stairs and become Mary Morstan, once and for all. Soon to be Mary Watson. With all the secrets and lies and the singular truth that she loved this man more than she loved life itself. If she left, the heart that she had guarded and fortified and shored up against this one fatal and cruel assault, the flaw of caring for another individual would break anyway. And what good then? How much did she have left? Why not return to CAM at that point? Take up arms and let it all wither away. What was anything worth without John?

She exited and turned right.

Sherlock appearing at dinner didn't surprise her either. She'd had an inkling he might still be alive. She never intended on telling this to John. Perhaps Sherlock had his reasons for disappearing and it would have broken his heart to know he was not reason enough to stay. She had been content to leave him dead if that was where he wanted to be.

It wasn't his personality, either. That didn't surprise her. That could have been predicted as well. She wasn't the first. The first person with secrets beneath the surface. The first person who courted danger like a lover. The first person with a streak of coldness and warmth that were so often at odds with each other they caused a never ceasing storm within. No, that all made sense.

She wasn't surprised at John's anger, fully formed and unleashed.

She wasn't even surprised that she liked Sherlock. He was charming and odd, a bit slow, a bit melodramatic and sentimental, dashing and clever and trustworthy. And hopeful! Oh so hopeful and just so terribly sad. And she had meant it, standing there staring at him with his battered face and bloody nose, when she'd said she'd bring him round.

For the first time that night she saw him really regarding her, assessing her. What was he seeing? The guise she had assumed or what lay beneath? How clever was Mr. Sherlock Holmes?

No.

The surprise of the evening came later on after they were seated in the taxi heading home.

"John, I know you must be angry-" She started but he quickly cut her off.

"Not angry." He said with a curt head shake.

"No, of course. Anger is a bit too mild. Furious, of course, but what he did-"

"What he did... was break my heart." John replied simply.

Oh. She thought.

Oh. I see.

Love had clouded her vision to the obvious. This was why in the beginning she had gotten such confusing signals as to who he was mourning. A brother? A lover?

She had implied a disparity where none existed.

And so she accepted the ring and the proposal of a man whose freshly sewn together heart was torn in two again. And though she had thought she was getting a whole, she instead received a half.

Jealousy was unfamiliar to her. She'd never allowed herself to care that much about something so it hardly mattered in someone took it away. But this was different because John did matter.

On top of the jealousy another feeling crept in and nestled inside her heart. The desire for John to be happy. God but he was bad at lying. He wouldn't discuss it with her, not as fully as she would like or needed but there was a thrumming energy to him now. Different from anything she'd felt before. If Sherlock Holmes made him this happy wouldn't it be better to push them together once and for all and find out where she stood? Was she doing it? Was she actually putting his feelings above her own? Damn this. Damn all of this, but she couldn't say no.

When John was taken, she was frantic, when they located him in the midst of the Guy Fawkes bonfire she wept with happiness. It was only in retrospect, holding him in bed that she recalled the same frantic tinge to Sherlock's voice, the panic, the gentle way he caressed his face and...

Oh.

Oh, I see.

She braced herself to be left and castigated herself for thinking she deserved better.

Oh, really Rosamund? Do you think you've done anything to earn this happiness? To deserve it. This is precisely the kind of ending you've stored up for yourself. How dare you. How dare you even think this is something you could ever, ever claim.

But he didn't leave. He mended things with Sherlock, their friendship re-cementing itself faster than she could have imagined. And though she prepared herself for hemming and hawing when it came to choosing a church or a date or the script for the invitations he was instead filled with even more vigor than before. His sincerity was in no way strained of fabricated. She felt every indication that he loved her still and perhaps more than he did before.

Could he love them both? Actually and truly love them both and not feel saddled with her despite Sherlock's resurrection?

She was confused, and that didn't happen often. Ultimately, she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was still to be married. She was still to be Mrs. John Watson. She might still be able to put She might still be able to bury the ugliness of the past as deep as the earth would allow.

As much as she liked Sherlock initially her affection for him grew all the more. He seemed fully engrossed in his work. If he was a rival, he didn't know it. But even so, she liked him in spite of the danger he posed to her heart and John's.

All that _did_ give her pause was the knowledge that John had not exaggerated his abilities. Not in the least. He was remarkable and she had to be wary around him. She wasn't one for slips of the tongue, though she did regret the skip code revelation, but still, it was best to be careful.

The wedding was on par with what she had dreamed of as a girl, back when she had allowed herself to dream. All except for the letter. That one letter. That one damned letter that said he was close. She did her best to put it out of her mind. It would keep.

The pregnancy...now _that_ was a surprise, a bright and beautiful surprise and she was going to be a mother and he was going to be a father and she was happy about it. So, so happy. And as real as she thought Mary Morstan, sorry, Mary _Watson_ was, she became even more real and more true in this moment. Oh heavens, this was life in all it's painful, painful beauty. She watched Sherlock's face as John danced her away. Happy and sad. Happy and sad. A living dramedy mask. It hurt to see him.

How on earth had she found herself here?

And then it crashed down as these things often did. And because she could not easily be stripped of her last scraps of cynicism and pessimism she felt the great rumble of the storm clouds as they approached.

She had no qualms about killing Magnussen. He was the living embodiment of vermin. He was that horrible phenomenon where a groups of rats somehow got their tails entangled and unable to separate themselves they existed as a writhing, vomitous mass, a rat king it was called. And that was he, Magnussen, a walking, living, breathing rat king.

Hitchcock came up with a term for the item or person that you keep your eye on in a movie because you knew, you just knew it was important, it was the lynchpin, it was the dime that everything would turn on. But you were wrong. It was called a MacGuffin and the MacGuffin was a con, a sleight of hand, a distraction, a trick played on the audience.

She had grown lax, complacent, lazy and slow and she had thought Sherlock Holmes was a MacGuffin.

But she had been oh so wrong. And she stared at him in that room affecting a look of coldness that was both false and true. She had no desire to kill him. But she would kill him to protect what she had with John. It was an equation, simple enough. And unfortunately for the detective, John would always carry more weight.

But that was rash. It was all happening too fast. All she could do was make a grim calculation. It had been a few years since she'd handled a gun and she could only hope that he was strong and her shot was true.

She was a trained surgeon with a weapon. Sherlock would say as much in the steam tunnel later. But this was a coin flip and if the burden of this chance to be take could be shifted, then let it fall on Sherlock. The only true winner needed to be John.

Keeping John, keeping the monster that she once was from John was more important that the potential loss of Sherlock's life.

It seemed she wasn't even close to done making hard decisions. But they had never made her quick so sick to her stomach before.

 _Please, God, let him live._

She phoned an ambulance before she left. She stared down at his body, pleased that he had been smart enough to fall backward...and apologized. She'd never done that before. She had never been sorry before. But as she stood there watching a good man bleed out she was sorry and she wished to heaven he hadn't come.

That bullet was time, time to think, time to pause and reset and it had worked for awhile. Her relief at Sherlock's survival was genuine but he still needed a warning. She issued it to him in his drug-addled state and knew that it was also an invitation. They would need to have a conversation, just the two if them.

Once upon a time, the secrets were her biggest motivation, the gross and vile secrets that squirmed in Magnussen's grip. But now, it was John. Holding John, keeping John, protecting John. Keeping his love for her at all costs. Nothing outweighed that. Nothing. She was now Mary, fully Mary and the tragedy of it all was that just when she had begun living she realized that without him, she would cease to exist. She would wink out of sight. There were no other faces to assume, places to go. She had rolled the dice and this, _this_ was it. Here, with him was where she needed to be and she would preserve that through blood and bullets and anything else at her disposal.

When she met him in the tunnel, she thought she could strike an intellectual bargain with Sherlock. That somehow they could sort this out. But he'd been too clever for her.

She had always lived hard. It came as little surprise when she discovered she loved hard as well. All sharp and solid all edges and very little give.

The worst of it was seeing that John didn't understand that.

Coming in a close second was seeing that Sherlock, the man who had apparently faked his own death and ceased to be in his own right to keep John safe, did.

What a bizarre collection of fools they were.

"Now talk." He'd said. "Sort it out. Do it quickly."

And he didn't mean the disaster that was her before-life or everything with Magnussen. He meant her marriage.

He was pushing them together as she had pushed John towards him upon his return.

Someone was always moving...manipulating John, so it seemed.

And while it could have been the gloating of a man who had surely won, because how could John ever, ever forgive her after this. It wasn't. The sincerity of it made her feel wretched.

She saw the baby become less real to John the longer she told her story at Baker Street, less of a possibility and more of a thing. A thing like her. She watched it drain from his gaze. John was finally looking at her as though he saw her. Saw her for what she truly was; to her marrow, to her soul if she still had one. What he saw revolted him. As she always feared and knew it would.

He didn't speak to her for months. He moved out, back to Baker Street, back to where things made sense, even the lies.

She had lost him and she wanted to cry like a child because what could possibly matter now.

She had never really had anyone's trust before and never cared to. But she wanted to regain John's. Even a hint that it was working had taken ages. Whether Sherlock was at work behind the scenes she didn't know, but she suspected.

She had grown big in the interim and as the baby became less conceptual theory and more reality her love for it only grew as did her love for her husband. She saw the conflict in his eyes. The conflict of a good man. He gave her a once over check up every few days. He touched her but it was clinical, always clinical. The lack of an embrace hurt, it ached in her bones but she bore it. And she would bear more still because this was the least of what she deserved.

She would make this pilgrimage back to his heart on her knees if he wished it.

It was clear to her that John was ready to wash his hands of all of it. She didn't have the words to make him stay.

But Sherlock did.

This wasn't deduction or reason or manipulation; this was just love. That was all. A love for John that put him into action. The action was in a word, bizarre. He'd invited them for a holiday of some sort...with his parents and brother. She was shocked John agreed to it.

"You're thinking of running." he said to her one day in the bright kitchen of the bafflingly normal surroundings that were the Holmes Christmas. "Don't."

"He'd be better off." She said softly.

" Mary...when you talk like that it make me believe you don't know him at all."

"He'd have you." She said dragging his gaze to hers and holding it. Holding it like she had never dared to before because what good did it do to expose this, to bring it to light and say 'I _know_.'. But she did it anyway and he was the one who finally broke away.

"I'm not enough." he said simply.

"You'd be rid of me. Once and for all."

"Don't underestimate me, Mary. If I wanted to be rid of you, If I wanted him to myself, you would be gone. You're not the only one who would go to extreme lengths to protect him. I know the power I hold in his life and that is why I seldom wield it." His tone was harsh, quick and staccato and just as quickly it softened. "I like you, Mary. I always have. I found the lying to me far more egregious and hurtful than the bullet. You've apologize. I've accepted. What's a bit of gunplay between mates? That's why they call it friendly fire."

"I like you too." She said honestly.

"Good, now go fix your marriage. He's torturing himself and he's no good to me like this."

She nodded as though she had been given marching orders and turned to leave.

"Sherlock...do you...?" She began.

But he didn't let her finish.

"I made two vows at your wedding reception. One public and one secret. Some things are private and should remain that way. They _will_ remain that way."

She nodded again having been given her answer and let him be.

When John came to her, finally came to her she kept her hopes small, her enthusiasm tentative. She wasn't sure how much he was offering and she braced herself for the scraps of his affection. Instead, he gave it to her fully. And it was bountiful and she feared, so undeserved, but she wasn't foolish enough to question him.

He set fire to AGRA and in doing so to Agatha, Grace, Regina and Allison. She didn't need them anymore. She was Mary, for now and forever.

She didn't remember much after their embrace, Sherlock saw to that. When she awoke Magnussen was dead by Sherlock's hand. Like that, her problems seemed ended.

She wasn't foolish enough to believe that Sherlock had done it for her. In a way he had, of course. But this was for John. Everything he did, was for John.

The night before Sherlock was to leave, presumably forever, her husband was a wreck. He couldn't sleep. He was violently ill. And she sat up with him, embracing him silently, letting him hold his fantasy of what he thought she didn't know as close to himself as she held him to her.

As she embraced Sherlock on the tarmac she felt certain she was saying goodbye. She had an idea as to where he was going and he'd likey be dead in three months or less. She smiled at him sadly and promised to look after John because it was all she could do.

As they parted, she realized she loved him too. Odd. Unexpected. But true.

Then she let the good men say their farewell. With this being a last opportunity for truth, damn the repercussions, she hoped one of them might say it.

They didn't.

But it didn't matter. Because the ridiculousness of the world saw them thrust back together again and all three of them were glad for it.

There were salad days to come and she chose not to think of how brief they might be. It felt like they had emerged from some dark tunnel which was funny considering that Moriarty was apparently still a threat...somehow.

She sat at Baker Street on some ordinary night, too pregnant and tired to bother moving, book in hand but still watching the two of them. Both sitting forward in their chairs, eyes riveted to one another, at one point discussing something intently, deeply, then bursting into laughter the next. John's hand idly touching Sherlock's knee, Sherlock's eyes darting from John's eyes to his lips and back again.

A thought occurred to her as she looked at the two men and for the thousandth time examined herself for signs of jealousy she didn't feel anymore.

What silly walls humans put between one another. What silly rules they fashion, She thought.

John excused himself to go to the loo but not before asking if there was anything he could fetch for either of them while he was up. They both said no, he kissed her and smiled and then exited shutting the door behind him.

Silence and then unbidden Sherlock said, "No."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your thoughts are as loud as a building collapsing onto its foundation."

"He might."

"He wouldn't."

"You don't know."

"His head would explode."

"Would you?"

"I haven't." He said and swallowed.

"Never?"

"No."

"But you've thought about it."

"Theoretically."

"Well, that's what thinking is. It's theory. So have you theorized? With him?"

A pause more pregnant than she was.

"Yes."

"With me?"

He sighed heavily forcing the air through his nose in a gust.

"Yes."

"Thought so. With both of us?"

"His _head_ would _explode_." He repeated.

"Didn't answer my question." She heard the toilet flush and added. "Be quick."

"Yes. Have you?" he asked and she knew it had taken great stores of bravery for him to force the question to his lips

"Yes. It would solve certain things." She answered simply.

"Your solutions have always been more cudgel than rapier, Mrs. Watson."

"I worry I'll lose him to you." She said voicing a fear she'd never said aloud.

He looked at her now for the first time.

"He is happy with you. Not as a consolation, as a wife. You won't lose him. I won't take him."

She notes that he doesn't say he _couldn't_ take him.

"I'm not talking about fun, Sherlock. Or a stupid drunken shag. I'm talking about something that might save us all. Aren't we almost there anyway? Aren't we close?"

"Horseshoes and hand grenades."

"Bollocks." She said with a shake of her head.

"I like you." He said softly.

"I love you. Didn't see it coming, mind. _He_ loves you."

He was still as a statue for a moment and she thought perhaps he might not be able to continue.

"I love him. I love you both."

"I won't take him from you either. But I live in fear the day is coming where he'll believe he has to choose."

The faucet switched off and John appeared a second later. He headed toward the fridge and opening it grabbed a bottle of water. A second later he launched back into the case, trying to clarify a thought he'd just had.

Mary settled back into the chair with her book and watched them. Two good men. Both of them who she tentatively, in her heart, called hers. She felt proprietary over both for them and just like that, the bubble extended. The bubble that in the beginning had only been about John and for John; Protect him at all costs. It was now, protect _them_ at all costs. Those two and the baby sleeping inside of her.

It would do. It would all do just fine. She could live this life. Long and happy, yes, she could live this life.

She had always believed the true measure of how much you loved someone was not whether or not you kill for them if you needed to. So far, that hadn't been disproven.

She breathed in and out and in again for what felt like the first time in years.

Mary smiled to herself. She would work on Sherlock. She would work on them both because Lord knows they weren't always clear on what was best for themselves.

She would preserve this and them and their happiness

She would appease and amend and repair the damage she had done.

She would make this moment with the three of them, the _four_ of them ensconced in simple Baker Street happiness last forever.

Or she would die trying.

* * *

 _ **A/N: I wanted to end it on a positive note. Before some of Mary's worst fears were ever realized. Before Therapist-Eurus, before Girl-On-Bus-Eurus, before the baby was born, before everything went to hell. Just a small respite of hope with these three people who managed to carve out an odd life together that seemed, in this moment, on an upswing. And I wanted to leave Mary as Mary, changed, yes, but still with a thought process and way of looking at things similar to how she started.**_

 _ **Hope you enjoyed it.**_ _ **.**_


End file.
